Jonny Quest rose to fame in1964 with the debut of the ABC primetime cartoon centering on Jonny, a boy who with his father goes on missions around the world. The team includes Jonny's best friend Hadji, his bulldog Bandit and government agent Race Bannon.

The Hanna-Barbera show from creator Doug Wildey was canceled after one season, but lived on in syndication and through comic book and cartoon revivals, but a big screen feature film has eluded the property. In the early 1990s, Superman director Richard Donner and Lauren Shuler Donner attempted to get it off the ground after Ted Turner purchased the Hanna-Barbera library. In 2010, an adaptation was greenlit with Zac Efron as Quest, Dwayne Johnson as Bannon and Peter Segal circling to direct, but the project never happened. Most recently, Robert Rodriguez was attached in 2015 direct.

McKay directed three seasons of Robot Chicken, and his feature-film debut Lego Batman earned more than $311 million globally and was a hit with critics. Last year, he became attached to a Nightwing movie, focusing on the Batman character, but so far that film has not materialized. In October, he answered a fan on Twitter who asked if the project was dead this way: "No. You’re going to have to wait tho. Keep hope alive. To paraphrase Dick Grayson: Nightwing lives. Always." He is also attached to direct Dungeons & Dragons for Paramount.

Jonny Quest will be produced by Dan Lin, Jonathan Eirich and Adrian Askarieh. Samantha Nisenboim and Ryan Halprin are also producing. Daniel Alter is executive producing. McKay is repped by UTA and Rise Management.